“Be careful with express credits and that you have to pay in advance. That must be made aware of completely discarding it”, stressed Elvira Méndez, a specialist in corporate and stock market finance at the Business School of La Salle University.
What to do to get out of debt?
Once you realize that you have exceeded your payment capacity -when it is advisable not to allocate more than 30% for the payment of credits-, the first step is not to despair. You must remain calm to avoid making bad decisions.
“Then we do things we shouldn’t; we resort to leonine loans or seek to consolidate the debt with a company that the only thing that is going to do is harm us, charging impressive interest rates”, said Adolfo Ruiz, director of communication and personal finance specialist at Banco Ve por Más (BX+).
You also have to identify who you owe, that is, if it is a credit card or a department store or self-service card and, based on this, organize a payment plan that allows you to get out of trouble.
The next step is to prepare a budget in which you eliminate all ant expenses, a resource that will allow you to pay the debts (liabilities) that you acquired, said Tomás Francisco Palacio Fernández, member of the Technical Commission of Finance and Financial System of the College of Public Accountants of Mexico (CCPM).
Only for one occasion “make the minimum payment. This is going to help me so that my account is not blocked, to maintain a good record and not to be reported to the Credit Bureau”, said the accountant Palacio Fernández.
The consequences of not complying with the payment of your debts can even end in “your bank accounts being seized,” he added.
The third step has to do with approaching the institution that gave you the credit card to try to restructure the debt. However, “the commission that they are going to charge for the restructuring is going to be higher,” warned Méndez of La Salle University.
On some occasions, the specialist stressed, the restructuring with the bank may have better conditions. That is why you have to know all the details of both the current debt and the new conditions.
Although it depends on your income and the amount of money you can pay per month, for the member of the CCPM the ideal term to pay these debts, and get out of trouble, is between six and nine months.